Far Away
by daflippnay
Summary: Unbeknown to anyone else, Nathan does not die. Rather, he is sent to an alternate dimension where he is the Watcher to a certain vampire slayer in Sunnydale. An alchemy experiment gone wrong sends Shilo to the Hellmouth, and Giles’ old life rushes back in
1. Chapter 1

Summary: Unbeknown to anyone else, Nathan does not die. Rather, he is sent to an alternate dimension where he is the Watcher to a certain vampire slayer in Sunnydale. When an alchemy experiment gone wrong sends Shilo to the Hellmouth, Giles' old life starts rushing back to him.

* * *

Shilo groaned as she came to, her entire body feeling as though it had gone through a blender. She sat up, her knees protesting as they scraped against the cold concrete beneath her.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember what had gone wrong. She'd been too enthusiastic during an alchemy experiment to the point of carelessness, and suddenly, literally, and figuratively, it had blown up in her face.

It suddenly occurred to her how big the damage could potentially be, and that thought sent her scrambling to her feet. It was then that she realized that her surroundings were not at all familiar to her. Shilo gasped, appalled. Maybe she'd blown up the house and someone had taken her under their wing? Or maybe just . . . Taken her? With a desperate noise, she first looked for any doors or windows, her mind picking up any details along the way. There was a huge wooden door at the front of the room, no windows that she could see, but there was a creepy above-ground stone sarcophagus sitting smack dab in the middle of the room.

"Graverobber?" she whispered hopefully, her voice echoing. He was the only person likely to take her into what looked to be a crypt.

Her body ached as she stepped towards the door, giving it a push and panicking when it didn't budge. After two minutes of blatantly freaking out, she rolled her eyes and tried again, this time pulling the handle. It was heavy, but it opened.

"I think you lost some brain cells during the explosion, Shi," Shilo muttered to herself as she stepped outside, frowning when rows and rows of gravestones came into view.

It appeared to be a large cemetery, and for a moment she was bereft. This cemetery didn't look at all familiar -- not that she was entirely familiar with the gratuitous amount of cemeteries back home.

As she looked over the seemingly endless rows of gravestones and markers, she became aware of the sound of a soft whirring. She held her breath and focused on the sound, realizing it was the low hum of vehicles passing. Shilo zigzagged around the cemetery, her ears perked as the sounds either disappeared or grew louder.

She was breathless and perspiring by the time she reached an iron wrought fence. She followed it until she found a gate, only to find that it was padlocked closed. Shilo groaned, frustrated. She was hungry, tired, lost, and frightened and this was just the icing on the cake. She gripped her hair -- newly grown in; her health had bettered almost instantaneously after she stopped her father's 'medication' -- as tears built behind her eyes.

"Little girls should know better than to be out this late in the evening," a soft voice, noticeably British, murmured behind her.

Shilo cried out in surprise and fear, jerking around to see who had spoken. A bleach blond man with light blue eyes and a black trench coat stood about three feet away from her, smirking around a lit cigarette.

"Who are you?" Shilo asked shakily, her hand pressed to her rapidly beating heart.

"The name's Spike," he said. He took a long drag of his cigarette and released a plume of smoke before asking, "And you?"

"My name is Shilo, and um, I'm a bit lost . . . " she said, biting her lower lip.

He chuckled. "You look it." He took a pull of his cigarette again. "It's not safe out here."

"I know," Shilo said, believing herself to still be home. "I-I just don't know how I managed to get here."

Spike sighed and waved his hand in a 'come along' gesture, walking in the opposite direction of the fence. "That's always the problem with this town. Lures you in and then suddenly you're settling down and makin' 'friends'" -- he crooked both index and middle fingers on both hands -- "and becoming a regular during kitten poker night."

The young girl frowned. "I don't understand."

He rolled his eyes. "No need. Just come with me."

Shilo followed him, albeit warily. It was almost a twenty minute walk before they came to what was probably the opposite side of the fence, and its gate was wide open. Across the street were several outlet stores, but there was only one that appeared to be open. The awning was a dark blue with white letters that read, 'The Magic Box.'

"Where are you taking me?" Shilo asked wearily.

"Rupes should still be in there seeing as he has no life," Spike replied.

"'Rupes?'" the young girl asked, frowning.

"He owns the store," he explained.

She nodded wordlessly, for once too tired to ask questions or absorb too much information.

Spike pushed the door open, the door above the frame jingling merrily. "Watcher!" he called out, glancing around for the man in question.

"He's in the back, on an inventory spree," a woman with strawberry blonde hair behind the counter said with a roll of her eyes. She looked bored, that is, until she laid eyes on Shilo. "We're closed, but if you buy things, I won't mind ringing you up and tallying the sales all over again. I get commission, you know."

"Um," Shilo said shyly, "I-I'm not here to buy anything . . . "

"Found this lost little kitty on the other side of Restfield," Spike said, pointing at the young girl with his thumb.

The other woman looked at her with interest. "Are you a demon?" she asked conversationally.

"Um--"

"She's human," Spike cut in.

"Anya, I'm sorry to keep you waiting but you can leave now--"

Shilo's eyes widened when a gray haired man came in from a back door. _It couldn't be!_ "D-_Dad?!_"

The three adults glanced at Shilo with wide eyes and shocked expressions.

Spike was the first to recover. He smirked at the older man. "Something you're not telling us from your Ripper days, ol' chap?"

Shilo suddenly felt dizzy. The room began to spin, and then abruptly she was out cold.


	2. Chapter 2

Giles sent Anya home after locking everything up and unfortunately had Spike tag along because he couldn't carry the girl. She was flushed with fever, and the Watcher and the vampire found her to be a bit delirious by the time they'd reached the flat and Spike had lowered her onto the couch.

"Dad! Dad, I'm _sorry_," she sobbed, writhing wildly on the couch. Spike tried to pin her there, but she continued to wriggle. "I didn't mean it when I said you'd been replaced, I didn't mean it when I said you should _die_ . . . !"

Behind the couch, Giles cleared his throat and polished his glasses. Spike glanced at him and they shared an incredulous look.

Shilo seemed to look straight at Spike, though her dark eyes were distant. "Let go of me! Is this purgatory?" she demanded. "Is this _Hell_?" Tears streamed down her cheeks. "I can only imagine that's where I'd see my dead father. And what perfect torture it is for him not even _know _me, to not even be the same man!"

"Calm yourself," Spike snarled as she continued to struggle beneath him. "No one's hurting you."

"This _place_ is hurting me!" Shilo cried. "Please let me go home!"

Spike released her wrists, allowing her to curl into the opposite corner of the couch. Her teeth chattered loudly.

"Where's home?" Giles asked gently.

Spike shook his head as he watched the girl curl in on herself, trembling and whimpering. "Don't think she's going to answer you anytime soon, mate."

Giles stepped into his kitchen, filling a glass with water and fetching a bottle of fever reducer from the cupboard. He knelt on the floor in front of the shaking girl, placing the glass down on the coffee table and uncapping the medicine bottle. "Shilo? Is that your name?" he said gently.

Shilo raised her head from the tops of her knees, looking at Giles as if she was seeing a ghost. Giles wordlessly deposited two capsules into his palm, offering it to her with the glass of water. The girl silently swallowed them down, draining the entire glass. Giles went into the kitchen to refill the kettle and put it on the stove. He refilled the glass with orange juice and handed it to Shilo.

"Might be easier to deal with in this state," Spike commented, following Giles back into the kitchen. "She's delirious and thinks you're her father. You won't have a hard time getting her to listen to you."

"What is it that happened to her father that's left her so traumatized?" Giles murmured, more to himself as he brought out three mugs from the dish rack.

"Innit obvious?" Spike asked, staring at him in disbelief. "He _died_. Think that's traumatic enough for anyone."

"You heard what she said," the Watcher reminded him. "It's more than that. People don't just _die_. Things happen."

"She's not a puzzle box, Rupert. She reeks of humanity. Whether she's from an alternate universe or not, the first thing she probably wants to do is go home." He tilted his head. "And the second thing she probably wants to do is throw herself off a very tall ledge."

Giles felt a headache coming on. "I think it's best you leave now."

"I don't get any tea?" Spike pouted, incredulous.

The Watcher sighed and realized he'd taken a mug out for him. Thankfully, the kettle went off at that same moment. He prepared the hot beverages, leaving one on the counter for Spike and walking back into the living room with Shilo's. He found the young girl asleep, her young face tense even in her slumber.

"Ta!" Spike called as he let himself out.

Wind from outside blew in as Spike closed the door, rustling the young girl's short hair. She shivered. Giles took the afghan from his leather recliner and draped it around her, giving her a long look before retiring upstairs.

--

Giles observed as Shilo got up from her spot on the couch to sit at the kitchen table, watching him quietly as he prepared breakfast. Her features seemed to crumble when he turned around to hand her her plate of bacon and English style breakfast potatoes. She quietly cried as she ate, refusing to look or even speak to him.

"Shilo . . . " Giles said gently, sitting across from her with his own plate. "I need to know more about you so that I might be able to send you home."

"My name is Shilo Wallace," she said softly. "I live on Sanitarium Island. Both my parents are dead. That makes me a seventeen year old orphan."

The Watcher frowned. "S-Sanitarium Island, you say?"

"What year is it?" Shilo asked suddenly, pursing her lips.

"The year 2000."

"It's the year 2056 back home," Shilo said, sounding shocked. She paled, putting her fork down with a clatter. "How can this be?" she whispered tightly.

"Shilo, how did you get here?" Giles asked, gently placing his hand atop hers.

"I was studying," Shilo replied absentmindedly. "In your--In my father's lab." She blushed at the slip. "My father has a lot of journals. Medical, chemistry, alchemy . . . I was trying to replicate an alchemy experiment that he once did. It was a cliché one. You know, turning lead into gold. I don't know what happened. I guess I got too excited and I poured something too quickly. Everything exploded, and when I awoke, I was in a crypt."

"And that's where Spike found you," Giles said.

She nodded.

"In your time, have they succeeded in turning lead into gold?" he asked.

"It's debatable," Shilo replied. "Everyone gets different results. The experiment hasn't been reliable at all, but neither have the people of my time."

"Why is that?"

"People are dying," she said, her voice soft. "It's a wide spreading disease that's causing organs to fail left and right. It's really hopeless. People have stopped looking for cures at this point. It's taking too long. Instead, they've created . . . Alternatives. Advanced surgery that lets you replace any failing organ you have, that is, if you've got the money. I don't think anyone looks out for anyone anymore. That's why nobody is reliable. They're just using one another as stepping stones."

Giles licked his lips, glancing down at his forgotten breakfast. "Is that really a place you want to go back to?"

"I have to," she said. "I promised my father that I'd help make that place better. It's _so _corrupt. I really have no idea what I could possibly do, but I can't just leave that place behind without trying. It's why I've been studying."

"I'll try my best," Giles said. "To . . . To send you back."

Her bottom lip trembled and she caught it between her teeth. "Thank you."

"By any chance, do you remember the combination of ingredients you used during your experiment?"

She nodded. "I can write it down for you. I-I just have to think where I might have gone wrong. It could have been even the temperature of something." She frowned, looking lost. "Everything in my father's lab is so old. The elements I used could even have been expired or tarnished." She growled to herself. "Why didn't I _think_?"

"Don't beat yourself up over this," Giles said. "We'll find some way."

Shilo blinked. "How?"

"The world you've dropped into isn't an ordinary one," Giles said wryly.

"Are there unicorns or something?" she asked, sounding incredulous.

"Or something, it would seem," he said, giving her a small smile. "Spike, for example, is a vampire."

She frowned. "And there are more like him?"

"Unfortunately," Giles replied. "Not only that. Completely different species of demon, hybrids, things that have been unnamed for centuries. And they're all attracted to this one place for its supernatural power."

"What is this place?" Shilo asked.

"It's called a Hellmouth."

"So I really am in Hell?" she squeaked.

"Not quite," Giles chuckled. "But I suppose it is close enough."


	3. Chapter 3

Shilo sat at the table a little towards the back of the Magic Box, brows creased as she wrote down what she could recall of the ingredients to her experiment. Her memory seemed to be failing her lately, but she didn't know if it was because of the explosion or because of the amount of stress she'd undergone in this place in just one day. She sighed and put her pen down, rubbing her forehead. It was probably a combination of both.

Sunnydale -- or the Hellmouth, as her father's look-alike called it -- carried its own brand of culture shock, too. For a place that attracted a lot of baddies, it was awfully beautiful in the daytime. She'd spent the morning perched on Giles' front steps, taking in the sunlight. Back at home, everything was so dreary with the amount of pollution that clouded the air and sky. The clean air would probably make the atmosphere back home a bitch to transition into once she got back, especially since her compromised immune system was just starting to kick in . . .

. . . If she ever did get back home.

"Are you alright, Shilo?" Giles' voice said behind her.

She dropped her hand from its place on her forehead. "I'm fine," she murmured.

"Tell me when you get hungry. I can have someone bring something in for you."

She nodded, feeling a sense of calm by the older man's hand on her shoulder. He wasn't her father, but he looked like him, and he did carry a sort of paternal aura. He was probably much nicer than her father, too. She sighed and returned to her piece of paper. Shilo was trying so hard not to grow an attachment to Giles, but it was difficult. It was completely skewing her mourning process for her father.

"I have to be careful about what I eat," Shilo piped up. "My father, he . . . " Did she really want to tell a complete stranger that her father had poisoned her for the better part of her life? Not that she would call it better at all. She pursed her lips, trying to choose her words carefully. "I was very ill until not too long ago. I don't know what foods I'm sensitive to. But the food over here can't be as bad as back home, I guess. There are so many preservatives in the food now."

Giles nodded, pushing his glasses further up his nose. "We can go food shopping later if you'd like."

A swell of affection rose within her before she could squash it down. Shilo swallowed, hard. She couldn't believe she was getting worked up over something as simple and domestic as going food shopping with her father -- no, this man who looked like her father. "Th-Thank you," she said, cursing her breathlessness.

He smiled kindly. "Shilo, may I ask a question about your father?"

She swallowed again, her mouth suddenly dry. "I-I can try my best to answer."

"His name . . . What was it?"

"His name was Nathan," Shilo replied, gripping the edge of the table. "Nathan Wallace. He was a . . . a doctor." She sucked in a breath when she heard the tinkling of the bell and watched the front door open. A young woman with chestnut brown hair swept into a messy bun stepped inside, smiling shyly.

"Good morning," she greeted.

"Tara," Giles said with a smile of his own. "Thank you for coming on such short notice. I was wondering if you could help."

"With what?" she asked, taking a seat across from Shilo at the big table, her keen eyes landing on the young girl.

"This is Shilo, um--"

"Wallace," Shilo said.

"Yes, Shilo Wallace. She . . . She dropped in from another dimension last night and she'd be extremely grateful if we helped her find her way home."

Tara blinked, a surprised look on her gentle features. "D-Dropped in?"

"I, uh, was doing an alchemy experiment back at home and it blew up," Shilo said sheepishly. "When I woke up, I was in a crypt. I'm not sure if you know him, but Spike found me. He took me here, to the shop." She glanced down at her abused slip of paper. "I've been trying to write down the ingredients I used, but for some reason I just can't recall all the calculations."

"I'll try to help you as best I can," Tara said gently, giving her a warm smile. "We all will. I think we have some pretty resourceful people around here."

Giles smiled down at the young girl, giving her shoulder another reassuring squeeze. "More than you know." He glanced at Tara. "We can call Willow when she's recalled enough of the chemical equations. I think we could use all the help we can get."

Tara smiled at Shilo when she tensed, her eyes strained as she glanced down at the paper. "There's no pressure, Shilo. Remember what you can. In fact, I could probably help you a little bit."

"H-How?" Shilo asked, her conversation with Giles coming to mind about how she'd landed in a not so ordinary place.

"I'm Wiccan," Tara explained. "I can use a harmless spell to induce memory enhancement. It's kind of like . . . Using ginko biloba, but in an advanced form and an even more advanced process."

"And it's . . . Safe, you said," Shilo said, licking her dry lips. "It only targets one specific memory?"

She nodded. "I can alter the incantation so that it triggers what it's supposed to trigger if you don't want anything else touched."

Shilo took a deep breath before nodding. "Okay."

"Don't worry," Tara said as she stood from her seat. "I'll just prepare the ingredients."

Shilo watched, her curiosity peaked as Tara went about the shop, collecting the needed items. There were small dusty vials and labeled zip lock bags filled with various dried plants. Tara retrieved a mortar and pestle from the back of the room, emptying the needed ingredients into the bowl and grinding them. Its aroma was strong, but not unpleasant.

"Come sit on the floor with me," Tara said after drawing a pentagram on the ground with chalk. She lined it with salt. She said a brief incantation at each point of the pentagram before stepping inside the circle. She motioned for Shilo to do the same.

Shilo carefully stepped over the line of chalk and salt, sitting in front of Tara with the bowl in between them. Tara lit two candles -- one red and one white -- making soft, sweeping gestures with her hands as she spoke her incantation softly.

"So mote it be," Tara finished, her hands coming to rest in her lap.

Shilo frowned, waiting for something grand to happen. "I don't--" And then suddenly images of what she'd written down on paper back at home came rushing through her mind, and she began to stand.

"Not yet," Tara said, quickly grabbing her hand. "I have to close the circle."

"But--"

"Don't worry," she said gently. "It will still be there."

Shilo nodded, sitting down again, her knee jiggling as she gradually lost her patience. It seemed like forever for Tara to close the circle, but once the witch was through, she practically leapt out of it and back to her paper, writing down everything she could remember.

"I'll call Willow," Giles said, going in the back to use the phone.


End file.
